Let me just start off by saying that this trip couldn’t have had a more fun group of people on the boat. Everybody, including the crew, had the best sense of humor and had an objective to do some great dives and have loads of fun through out the week. I’m pretty sure that everybody accomplished those goals.
During the course of this trip report you may see me reference things like the chicken game, the chicken award, and/or “little buddy”. Let me just go ahead and explain these things so that you aren’t confused.
The chicken game is basically where a diver has a rubber chicken with a bolt snap attached to it and the object of the game is to go into stealth mode on the dive and attach the chicken to other unsuspecting divers with out their knowledge. This usually happens by sneaking up behind the diver and attaching the chicken to their tank boot, but some people use a method that they call “full contact chicken”. That is basically the equivalent of bumping into another diver and attaching the chicken. I preferred the stealth mode myself.
The chicken award is supposed to be given to the diver at the end of the week who had the chicken the most during the dives. While I won the award, I contest that I had the chicken the most. I will however say that I embraced the spirit of the game and had quiet a bit of fun with it, including being creative and attaching the chicken in creative ways.
The birth of the “little buddy” joke is great. What happened was I was getting geared up to get into the water and happen to notice that a moth had landed on my thigh and I looked down and said “Hey little buddy, want to go diving with me?”… Needless to say the people around me gave me funny looks and thought that I was talking to my penis. We all had a great laugh and at least one person saw the moth, even though they won’t admit it publically. So if you see me look down one day and say something like “Don’t listen to them little buddy…” then you will know where the joke came from.
Ok, enough explaining things… Let’s talk about the diving. Due to American Airlines rescheduling flights and airline delays we didn’t actually get to Provo until after 10PM Saturday night. That meant that we would have to wait until high tide Sunday morning before we could leave the marina and out to sea. That meant that we would miss our first dive, bummer! Our Sunday morning started out a little rough. We had a chilly north wind and 3 to 4 foot seas. That made for a rocking boat for the first day. For some reason the song “Rock the Boat” by the Hues Corporation kept popping into my head..lol. After the first day the sea’s died down and we had great weather the remainder of the week. The visibility was a little worse at most sites then it was last year (June 2006) due to tropical storm Noel that passed through the region a few weeks prior to the trip. It still wasn’t horrible though, typically around 50 feet or so. Water temperatures ranged between 80 - 82 degrees all week. The diving was great and I loved every minute of it. Some of my diving highlights were:
* The Octopus that was curious of me, on the first night dive, and followed me around for 20 minutes, inking a moray eel and a jack that got in his way in his pursuit of my light.
* The first two squid that I have ever seen up close and personal, again on the first night dive. Unfortunately one of the little guys was eaten by a Jack as I was watching him.
* I spotted not one, but two Lion fish at two different dive sites. That’s rare since Lion fish are native to the waters of the South Pacific, NOT the Caribbean.
* Playing the chicken game with everybody on the boat, including Bee, one of the dive guides. I got her once by filling one of the rubber chickens will air, wrapping some line from my spool around it, launching it about ten feet above her in the water column, and clipping it off to her. It looked like she was flying a chicken kite. She got the last laugh though, when she managed to clip all three rubber chickens to my crotch d-ring with out me noticing until she was already on the boat. I told her that my little buddy must have been off guard duty during that dive.
I dove Nitrox the entire week. All my mixes analyzed between 32 - 33%.
My deepest dive was 106 fsw.
My longest dive was 70 minutes.
In 23 dives I logged 23 hours 13 minutes.
Here is the list of sites that were dove in order:
1. Northwest Point (I think) - Sand Mooring Channel
2. Northwest Point - The Thunderdome
3. Northwest Point - The Thunderdome
4. Northwest Point - The Thunderdome
5. Northwest Point - The Amphitheatre
6. Northwest Point - The Amphitheatre
7. Northwest Point - The Crack
8. Northwest Point - The Crack
9. West Caicos - The Gullies
10. West Caicos - The Gullies
11. West Caicos - Rock Garden Interlude
12. West Caicos - Rock Garden Interlude
13. West Caicos - Rock Garden Interlude
14. West Caicos - Brandy Wine
15. West Caicos - Brandy Wine
16. French Cay - Half Mile Reef
17. French Cay - Half Mile Reef
18. French Cay - Double D
19. French Cay - Double D
20. French Cay - The G-spot
21. French Cay - The G-spot
22. French Cay - The G-spot
23. French Cay - Rock and Roll
Some of the pictures can be viewed on my website: UnderwaterExploration.org
During the course of this trip report you may see me reference things like the chicken game, the chicken award, and/or “little buddy”. Let me just go ahead and explain these things so that you aren’t confused.
The chicken game is basically where a diver has a rubber chicken with a bolt snap attached to it and the object of the game is to go into stealth mode on the dive and attach the chicken to other unsuspecting divers with out their knowledge. This usually happens by sneaking up behind the diver and attaching the chicken to their tank boot, but some people use a method that they call “full contact chicken”. That is basically the equivalent of bumping into another diver and attaching the chicken. I preferred the stealth mode myself.
The chicken award is supposed to be given to the diver at the end of the week who had the chicken the most during the dives. While I won the award, I contest that I had the chicken the most. I will however say that I embraced the spirit of the game and had quiet a bit of fun with it, including being creative and attaching the chicken in creative ways.
The birth of the “little buddy” joke is great. What happened was I was getting geared up to get into the water and happen to notice that a moth had landed on my thigh and I looked down and said “Hey little buddy, want to go diving with me?”… Needless to say the people around me gave me funny looks and thought that I was talking to my penis. We all had a great laugh and at least one person saw the moth, even though they won’t admit it publically. So if you see me look down one day and say something like “Don’t listen to them little buddy…” then you will know where the joke came from.
Ok, enough explaining things… Let’s talk about the diving. Due to American Airlines rescheduling flights and airline delays we didn’t actually get to Provo until after 10PM Saturday night. That meant that we would have to wait until high tide Sunday morning before we could leave the marina and out to sea. That meant that we would miss our first dive, bummer! Our Sunday morning started out a little rough. We had a chilly north wind and 3 to 4 foot seas. That made for a rocking boat for the first day. For some reason the song “Rock the Boat” by the Hues Corporation kept popping into my head..lol. After the first day the sea’s died down and we had great weather the remainder of the week. The visibility was a little worse at most sites then it was last year (June 2006) due to tropical storm Noel that passed through the region a few weeks prior to the trip. It still wasn’t horrible though, typically around 50 feet or so. Water temperatures ranged between 80 - 82 degrees all week. The diving was great and I loved every minute of it. Some of my diving highlights were:
* The Octopus that was curious of me, on the first night dive, and followed me around for 20 minutes, inking a moray eel and a jack that got in his way in his pursuit of my light.
* The first two squid that I have ever seen up close and personal, again on the first night dive. Unfortunately one of the little guys was eaten by a Jack as I was watching him.
* I spotted not one, but two Lion fish at two different dive sites. That’s rare since Lion fish are native to the waters of the South Pacific, NOT the Caribbean.
* Playing the chicken game with everybody on the boat, including Bee, one of the dive guides. I got her once by filling one of the rubber chickens will air, wrapping some line from my spool around it, launching it about ten feet above her in the water column, and clipping it off to her. It looked like she was flying a chicken kite. She got the last laugh though, when she managed to clip all three rubber chickens to my crotch d-ring with out me noticing until she was already on the boat. I told her that my little buddy must have been off guard duty during that dive.
I dove Nitrox the entire week. All my mixes analyzed between 32 - 33%.
My deepest dive was 106 fsw.
My longest dive was 70 minutes.
In 23 dives I logged 23 hours 13 minutes.
Here is the list of sites that were dove in order:
1. Northwest Point (I think) - Sand Mooring Channel
2. Northwest Point - The Thunderdome
3. Northwest Point - The Thunderdome
4. Northwest Point - The Thunderdome
5. Northwest Point - The Amphitheatre
6. Northwest Point - The Amphitheatre
7. Northwest Point - The Crack
8. Northwest Point - The Crack
9. West Caicos - The Gullies
10. West Caicos - The Gullies
11. West Caicos - Rock Garden Interlude
12. West Caicos - Rock Garden Interlude
13. West Caicos - Rock Garden Interlude
14. West Caicos - Brandy Wine
15. West Caicos - Brandy Wine
16. French Cay - Half Mile Reef
17. French Cay - Half Mile Reef
18. French Cay - Double D
19. French Cay - Double D
20. French Cay - The G-spot
21. French Cay - The G-spot
22. French Cay - The G-spot
23. French Cay - Rock and Roll
Some of the pictures can be viewed on my website: UnderwaterExploration.org
